2012 Azzaro Vineyards Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast 750 ml

An Unexpected Sonoma Coast Jewel

California Pinot Noir drinkers, this one’s for you: The 2012 Azzaro Vineyards Pinot Noir is a perfectly cellared beauty from the rising Sonoma Coast AVA. Pinot finds like this are extremely rare, so if you’re looking to stock your cellars with a budget-friendly California gem, we recommend claiming yours now. Now, after five years in the bottle, the garnet-colored Azzaro is showing just a touch of brick red around the rim, and is alive with deep and complex aromas: dried cherry, plum, kola nut, forest floor, and sweet pipe tobacco.

Read on to find out how we scored this phenomenal Pinot Noir:

A few months back, we were put in touch with the Azzaro family, producers of small-production, passion-driven red wines. They are long-time wine lovers, but their history as winemakers began when they purchased a small property just outside of the town of Sonoma, because it literally came with the territory: The parcel included one acre of Zinfandel, from which they thought they might eke a few cases of wine. To their pleasant surprise, the wine was fantastic—and there was about twenty times as much of it than they expected. They found themselves in the position of having a lot of excellent wine, but, aside from a handful of restaurant placements, not enough outlets through which to sell it.

Knowing that Wine Access had a long list of clients who would jump at the chance to claim perfectly cellared Sonoma County reds, a mutual friend put us in touch with Azzaro. Soon after, we headed an hour west on highway 12 to taste with winemaker Mark Marvier on the sun-drenched patio at the Azzaros’ property, a former farmstead just outside of the town of Sonoma. With its acre of grapes, swaying Italian cypress, lavender, and rose bushes, it recalls the Tuscan countryside as much as it does California wine country. While soaking up that atmosphere, we tasted through Marvier’s lineup, which included a handful of wines that reached back to 2012, the beginning of California’s stretch of fantastic vintages.

Mark told us about the early days of Azzaro over a decade ago, and how they were just about as far from the U.C. Davis-model of winemaking as a winery could be.

“It was very much learning by doing,” Marvier explained, about the first vintages of Zinfandel from the estate. But their wines got better and better, and eventually, Marvier and the Azzaros ventured outside of the estate to score Pinot Noir from friends in the Sonoma Coast AVA.

Tasting with Marvier, we were stunned to see how beautifully the Pinot Noir from the excellent 2012 season was showing, moving from notes of forest floor and lavender to dried cherry, plum, and exotic spice. Marvier gives the Azzaro Pinot the Grand Cru-like treatment, aging it in 50% new oak for at least 18 months.

He said about the 2012, which is really hitting its stride: “I hesitate to say that is has fruit left… because that implies that the wine is fading.” He tapped his glass. “This wine still has a long life ahead of it.”

Needless to say, we could have whiled away the entire afternoon on the Azzaro patio, sipping this mellow beauty. But we maintained our professionalism and left the gorgeous property to re-taste it in the less-picturesque confines of Wine Access HQ. Still fantastic.